Creating a killer LinkedIn headline and an exceptional summary are half the battle as whether we are job seekers or seeking to build a business, the additional information on our profile that starts with the “blue box,” begins to play a stronger role. Your headline and summary are your searched terms but once appearing in search results, a connection is made after review of your basic information is reviewed.

The Linkedin “Blue Box”

The LinkedIn blue box is what is seen first when your profile is clicked. Your name, headline, location and industry are displayed at the top. Thereafter, the information displayed is what makes networkers want to connect with you or move on to someone else. The items displayed beneath this basic information is some of the most  important as people want to know what you bring to their network – whether that be an alumni connection, a job connection or shared information.

8 Tips to Enhance Your LinkedIn Profile

1. Status Updates. Your status update is displayed immediately beneath your basic information. Status updates have become increasingly popular with the LinkedIn integration with Twitter. Automating posts from twitter to post on LinkedIn has been used extensively but not widely accepted. Different audiences. Your LinkedIn status is business and not what you ate for dinner, where you went or how your children are destroying the house. Be selective on what you share in your status but be sure to update at least 1x per day to show that you are an active networker.

2. Current Employer. Your current employment is what stands out when people are looking for people within their industry to connect with, are looking for a referral to do business with OR want to cross check your resume. Your most recent experience needs to match your headline and summary. If you are job seeking your opening paragraph of your summary will reflect that however the body should match your career aspirations and your experience.

3. Past Employment. Your past employment is where some get queasy. A position that you only held for a few months or admitting that you worked for a company that was an “in-between” job is never pleasant however long gaps are almost worse. Adding your previous employment for 5 to 10 years (up to 10 years only if it relates to longevity in a field) not only shows that you are employable but that you are eager to work (also can show that you jump around). This is also a great way to connect with coworkers that you have lost touch with. Also, remember, beneath the blue box you can add information about each position you held and your role in the company. Suddenly that “in between” job may have a whole lot more meaning than just paying the rent.

4. Education. Your education in the blue box is not much more than where you attended. This is pretty much letting people know that you did further your education and also for an alumni connection. Beneath the blue box allows you to expand upon your your degree, years of attendance, additional information about the school and activities you participated in.

5. Recommendations. Your recommendations are highly regarded as people want to see that you are well liked, trusted and respected within your industry. When seeking employment or trying to build a business, your recommendations are taken into consideration as if you have performed well for others, then you will perform well for them. The question always arises as to whether ask for the recommendation or to wait for it to be provided. This is never an easy question as some do not think to give a recommendation as they are either not as active on LinkedIn or are unsure as to what to say. Best practice is to consider the person that you would be asking. Have they freely given out recommendations with out being asked or from your experience with them, do they need that nudge?

6. Websites. Websites is set to the default of my website, my company, my blog, my RSS, my portfolio and other. The option of other allows you to add your actual company name for the website and the name of your blog. A common mistake made by many is not changing the default. Changing the default to Other and customizing your links not only introduces the names but also provides a familiarity to them.

7. Twitter. Since the development of the app and the integration with Twitter, you can add your  Twitter account as a separate line item. Cross connecting is always encouraged however cross posting, as discussed above, is not always welcomed and generally warrants a “hide” of your profile. Why? People share items that are now always LinkedIn worthy. Best bet is to set your LinkedIn Twitter to “Share only tweets that contain #li”. This way you can hashtag your tweets of an article, a quote, etc to be posted on your status.

8. Public Profile. Your public profile is customizable to your name or something of the like should your name be a common one. This is another common mistake that people make by not creating a custom profile. Your custom profile does not contain a series of. For example, your custom profile would be: www.linkedin.com/in/yournamehere and not www.linkedin.com/pub/name/seriesofnumbers. To customize, simply click edit and create your profile name when prompted.

The LinkedIn blue box does pack a powerful punch as before connecting, this is the main exposure people have to you and base their decision to connect from this initial information. If your profile blue box snippet peaks their interest, they will scroll down to review your summary, expanded work history and education. If not, they move on. LinkedIn CEO’s contact information is one of the most sought after executives.

The same thing happens with social media. While I do like to try new sites and services as they become available, it can easily become overwhelming. I thought I would start by pointing out a few ways I organize my Twitter efforts, and then ask you what you do to keep from getting overwhelmed.

Automation:

I don’t really believe in automation of social media per se. But I do a few things to make my efforts work easier for me, because let’s face it, it is easy to get lost in the time and end up “wasting” too much time on social media efforts and not getting any results. So, I do use a few tools to help me, and some of them I plan to write about more extensively in the coming weeks:

TwitterFeed:

Twitterfeed is a great tool to use to automatically send tweets from an RSS feed. I have several sites, and the last thing I want to do is forget to tweet one of my own articles! So I use Twitterfeed to automatically post from feeds, and not just my own. I also use it to tweet a few of my friends articles or people I always seem to RT anyway because I think my followers will enjoy their content. I don’t go crazy with it, moderation is key, as with anything else.

Tweetspinner:

I have been using Tweetspinner off and on for about 6mos. I plan to write more extensively on it soon, but I will give you some basics about it here. Just to be clear, Tweetspinner is NOT a “get followers fast” application. It is more of a tool I use to manage my account. Some of the features include:

• DM Inbox: Archive and Anti-Spam – This feature helps get rid of spam DM’s
• Follower Manager: Manages followers by showing you those that you followed but aren’t following back, and those that have followed you and you are not following back.
• Prune/Purge: This is part of the follower manager, and you can set it to unfollow people based on settings, like if they haven’t Tweeted in 30days (or however many you set). There are other settings to filter these actions.
• Keyword Follow: This feature allows you to choose keywords, and automatically follow people that Tweet them. (one of my favorite features, because you are targeting those you follow by their tweets)
• Mimic Follow: This feature allows you to put in another Twitter user, and start following their “friends” and followers. Can be really helpful if someone has very similar interests and you want to target their followers too. I have found that these followers tend to follow you back more than the keyword followers too.
• Location Filtering: Local business? Put your location in, and only the ones in that location get followed!
• Smart Tweets: This feature allows you to schedule tweets. I am not a huge fan of this, but I do use it occasionally.

Unless you get the “Pro” account, most of these features are limited or not available. There is a free 5 day trial for the Pro account, so you can test it at no risk. The best part about the “Pro” account is all these features can be turned on/off and set on a schedule for you.

Some might argue that this takes the “social” out of social media, I disagree. But, I am not trying to automate my social media, only make it easier for me in the time I have. I have gained 800 targeted followers in the last 4 days using it, and they are targeted for me. How much time do you think it would take to do that with twitter search, manually filtering?

Feed Twitter To Other Sources:

I spend MOST of my social time on Twitter, so to me, it makes sense to “feed” my Tweets out to other services. Currently, I feed mine out to my FriendFeed account, my Facebook account, and , my LinkedIn account. This allows me to reach a larger audience with only one update.

Twitter Lists:

I use lists to organize my friends so I can browse by a “topic”. It really does help me to see people I am really trying to follow, and they don’t get lost in a stream of “noise”, which Twitter can be at times. Lists are nothing new, but I really don’t think people use them to their advantage. I even have people on lists that I am not following yet, so I can watch them before I decide to commit.

Discussion:

These are a few of the ways I make my time on social media a little more “organized”, what about you?

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Today I was looking at an article that SmartBrief sent me about Twitter. It was a nice piece by The Washington Post and it triggered my curiosity. I started a short search on how to use Twitter to draw traffic or even make sales. I’m going to add Twitter to my daily ‘to do‘ list. I guess I just needed a little inspiration.

Every blogger has heard of ProBlogger. I thought I’d follow the advice of Darren Rowse rather than buy another useless ebook promising to shed some light on the subject and delivering another waste of disk space. I’ll share the links I’ve used to educate myself. They’re all from Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.net. According to The Wall Street Journal Online, yes, I said The Wall Street Journal, Darren Rowse earned roughly $250,000 in 2007 off ads on three blogs he writes.

Why I Love Twitter
httpv://youtube.com/watch?v=Do7gsU6EKUU

ProBlogger Links:

How I Use Twitter to Promote My Blog

TwitterFeed – Promote Your Blog Posts to Twitter Followers

Twitter is a Complete Waste of Time!

Why Twitter Isn’t a Waste of Time

35 Twitter Tips from 35 Twitter Users

When Seth Godin isn’t Seth Godin